Is 12GB for an i7 overkill?

[Jumpem]

Intended uses are light desktop work (Outlook, Word, Excel, IE7) and gaming.

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

For that, yes.

Any 32-bit program won't use more then 2-3Gig, max. Most a lot less then that. So no game is going to use more then 2-3gig as well, unless it's compiled for 64-bit, which I don't think many games are. Plus you need a 64-bit OS to even see that much RAM.

12Gig would be useful for large 64-bit apps, that would have a need for that much RAM (maybe databases, 64-bit photoshop), or more likely, for running multiple VM's. If you run 2-3 VM's, you can allocate ~3Gig RAM to each VM so it doesn't get slowed down from lack of RAM and swapping to disk, and still have RAM for you real OS.

But for running 1-2 apps at a time max, it's overkill

 

[taltamir]

how big are your excel files? those can eat a lot of ram.
the rest could do with 6GB for sure.
Most excel use is light though, and will not require that amount of ram.

 

[pcslookout]

Yes unless you run a lot of VMs or want a 4 GB ram drive.

 

[Nothinman]

With as cheap as memory is these days, why not? At the very least the OS will use whatever memory you don't directly use for caching.

 

[TemjinGold]

For your uses, 6 gigs is overkill but with prices the way they are, overkill isn't necessarily bad.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: TemjinGold
For your uses, 6 gigs is overkill but with prices the way they are, overkill isn't necessarily bad.

+1

Especially if you do not intend to upgrade the ram for a long while... if this is a computer a company is buying and is opposed to upgrades, than you will appreciate 12GB of ram in a year or two.

 

[Red Squirrel]

12GB is old school. 24GB is where it's at!

I can't believe you can go that high now, it's nuts lol

 

[pcslookout]

8 GB is where it is at now but sense your going i7 your going to have to go 12 GB or else have only 6 GB.

So that should be fine.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Also depends what OS. If it's Vista then put all the ram you can, if it's XP then no sense going more then 8. Either way ram is dirt cheap nowdays so may as well have a lot.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
Also depends what OS. If it's Vista then put all the ram you can, if it's XP then no sense going more then 8. Either way ram is dirt cheap nowdays so may as well have a lot.

if it is XP 64bit, vista 64bit, or windows 7 64bit it can use it all.
if it is XP 32bit, vista 32bit, or windows 7 32bit it is limited to 4GB address space (usually about 3GB of ram and 1GB of other stuff)

 

[pjkenned]

Here's the deal on 12GB for your usage... odds are, it is going to be wasted. That being said, if it's like $80, and you think of $80 as your average Friday night dinner so spending $80 for 12GB may be fun just for kicks and giggles. It is not going to give you a noticeable performance increase or decrease with what you are doing.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Oh and speaking of overkill, I was bored and decided to put this beast of a server together:

http://gal.redsquirrel.me/imag...ov_server_wishlist.jpg

Later on I want to build something like that and collocate instead of rent. Such server would probably cost like 1k per month to rent, when I can build it for 2-3k and colo it for 100/mo... do the math. MUCH cheaper for a better performing server.

Still a huge one time sum though.

 

[taltamir]

"there is no such thing as overkill, there is only reload and open fire"

 

[Nothinman]

Also depends what OS. If it's Vista then put all the ram you can, if it's XP then no sense going more then 8

And you made up those numbers where?

 

[Emulex]

just run 2008 R2 X64 hyper-v with 12gb and you can have a few vm's running while you are gaming

 

[StinkyPinky]

I run VM's so my 8 gigs is very useful. Depends what you're doing with it of course. No game needs more than 4G at the moment.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: StinkyPinky
I run VM's so my 8 gigs is very useful. Depends what you're doing with it of course. No game needs more than 4G at the moment.

Needs or can use? there are many games that can use more than 4GB. X3 can actually break 7GB of ram used.

 

[vj8usa]

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: StinkyPinky
I run VM's so my 8 gigs is very useful. Depends what you're doing with it of course. No game needs more than 4G at the moment.

Needs or can use? there are many games that can use more than 4GB. X3 can actually break 7GB of ram used.

The game itself actually uses 7+GB? That has to be a memory leak or some sort of bug, right? Even Terran Conflict's recommended spec is 2GB RAM (1GB min).

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: StinkyPinky
I run VM's so my 8 gigs is very useful. Depends what you're doing with it of course. No game needs more than 4G at the moment.

Needs or can use? there are many games that can use more than 4GB. X3 can actually break 7GB of ram used.

Is it 64-bit software? Because no 32-bit can use more then 4gig. For anything to use more then 4gig, you need both a 64-bit OS and 64-bit app.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: GarfieldtheCat

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: StinkyPinky
I run VM's so my 8 gigs is very useful. Depends what you're doing with it of course. No game needs more than 4G at the moment.

Needs or can use? there are many games that can use more than 4GB. X3 can actually break 7GB of ram used.

Is it 64-bit software? Because no 32-bit can use more then 4gig. For anything to use more then 4gig, you need both a 64-bit OS and 64-bit app.

X3:TC easily gets up to about 3.5GB-4GB with a mature game in a busy sector and is LargeAddressAware since the 2.0 update. I can usually hit 6-7GB commit charge for my whole system while it's running, but I multitask pretty heavily (3 screens helps).

They are still messing around with memory usage and exe's on the beta forum, and I am trying to get them to give us a 64-bit exe on the next patch, or at least an unsupported exe to play with. As it's a sandbox-type game, there really isn't a hard limit to how many ships and stations that can be populated in the universe other than how much hardware you can throw at it and the current 32-bit limitations.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: vj8usa

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: StinkyPinky
I run VM's so my 8 gigs is very useful. Depends what you're doing with it of course. No game needs more than 4G at the moment.

Needs or can use? there are many games that can use more than 4GB. X3 can actually break 7GB of ram used.

The game itself actually uses 7+GB? That has to be a memory leak or some sort of bug, right? Even Terran Conflict's recommended spec is 2GB RAM (1GB min).

actually it was a special patch to allow it to make use of extra ram for extra performance when available.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: GarfieldtheCat

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: StinkyPinky
I run VM's so my 8 gigs is very useful. Depends what you're doing with it of course. No game needs more than 4G at the moment.

Needs or can use? there are many games that can use more than 4GB. X3 can actually break 7GB of ram used.

Is it 64-bit software? Because no 32-bit can use more then 4gig. For anything to use more then 4gig, you need both a 64-bit OS and 64-bit app.

actually you are wrong. no 32bit software can use more than TWO (2) GB of ram. the whole entire SYSTEM can have no more than 4GB of address space, used first by GPU and other devices, and then as system ram..

EX:
4GB machine running xp32bit:
0.3GB for general devices.
0.5GB for video card.
3.2GB available system ram, out of which every PROGRAM is limited to 2GB only.

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: GarfieldtheCat

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: StinkyPinky
I run VM's so my 8 gigs is very useful. Depends what you're doing with it of course. No game needs more than 4G at the moment.

Needs or can use? there are many games that can use more than 4GB. X3 can actually break 7GB of ram used.

Is it 64-bit software? Because no 32-bit can use more then 4gig. For anything to use more then 4gig, you need both a 64-bit OS and 64-bit app.

actually you are wrong. no 32bit software can use more than TWO (2) GB of ram. the whole entire SYSTEM can have no more than 4GB of address space, used first by GPU and other devices, and then as system ram..

EX:
4GB machine running xp32bit:
0.3GB for general devices.
0.5GB for video card.
3.2GB available system ram, out of which every PROGRAM is limited to 2GB only.

I think this is incorrect. Any 32-bit OS is limited to 4gig RAM. As you point out, Windows reserves part of this 4gig address space for various things, reducing the usable physical RAM to about 3-3.5Gig, depending on video card RAM. I'm not sure about server versions of windows, but I *think* with PAE they can see more then 4gig, but that's really not applicable here.

But each 32-bit windows app does have their own full 4gig virtual address space, it is just that Windows again reserves 2gig of that to the OS, leaving 2gig to the program. but if the program supports it, you can enable the 3gig flag, which changes the 2/2 split to 3/1, giving the 32-bit application access to 3Gig of RAM.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: GarfieldtheCat

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: GarfieldtheCat

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: StinkyPinky
I run VM's so my 8 gigs is very useful. Depends what you're doing with it of course. No game needs more than 4G at the moment.

Needs or can use? there are many games that can use more than 4GB. X3 can actually break 7GB of ram used.

Is it 64-bit software? Because no 32-bit can use more then 4gig. For anything to use more then 4gig, you need both a 64-bit OS and 64-bit app.

actually you are wrong. no 32bit software can use more than TWO (2) GB of ram. the whole entire SYSTEM can have no more than 4GB of address space, used first by GPU and other devices, and then as system ram..

EX:
4GB machine running xp32bit:
0.3GB for general devices.
0.5GB for video card.
3.2GB available system ram, out of which every PROGRAM is limited to 2GB only.

I think this is incorrect. Any 32-bit OS is limited to 4gig RAM. As you point out, Windows reserves part of this 4gig address space for various things, reducing the usable physical RAM to about 3-3.5Gig, depending on video card RAM. I'm not sure about server versions of windows, but I *think* with PAE they can see more then 4gig, but that's really not applicable here.

But each 32-bit windows app does have their own full 4gig virtual address space, it is just that Windows again reserves 2gig of that to the OS, leaving 2gig to the program. but if the program supports it, you can enable the 3gig flag, which changes the 2/2 split to 3/1, giving the 32-bit application access to 3Gig of RAM.

How does this ramdisk program get away with addressing more than 4GB on 32bit OSes? (I use it and have a 5GB ramdrive in XP pro 32bit)